“So what do you sickos want?”
“I want you to be my girlfriend.”
Melika smiled like a she-wolf baring her teeth. “Well, why don’t you come a little closer and let’s do this.”
“Actually, I want you to pretend to be my girlfriend for the next forty-eight hours, possibly a week.”
The Hawaiian spitfire pondered this unexpected development. “Pretend? Like you’re going to untie me and we’re going to have dates and go grind?”
“Something like that.”
“And if I say no?”
“I untie you and buy you some grind?”
“What the hell is wrong with you people?”
Bolan held forth his tablet. “This is a very expensive piece of equipment. A friend made it for me custom, so there are only a few like it in the world. Please don’t throw it.” Bolan tapped an app and brought back the Waikiki News’ lead story. He held it up for a moment so Melika saw the headline then consigned Kurtzman’s pride and joy to its fate. Melika took the tablet. Her brow furrowed as she read.
Bolan nodded. “I was on that ship last night. The night before I was in a cave with Tino, the big man with the broken hand, and some really unpleasant guy I hadn’t seen before. So were those girls.”
Melika flinched.
“Some really bad stuff is going down. I think you already have an inkling of it. It’s running the gamut from slavery to murder, and I have a feeling something far worse is lurking at the end of it.”
“And who are you, again?”
“The guy who’s going to stop it. Hopefully with your help.”
“What? You want me to go undercover?”
“I want you to help keep my cover firmly established, but I also know that your mother drove the bar into the ground and you had to borrow money from Uncle Aikane to buy it back. You’re close to him, and I bet you hear things.”
Melika flinched as though she’d been punched.
Bolan hadn’t known it was Uncle Aikane, but it was an easy guess.
“I won’t betray my people.”
“I’m asking you to help me save lives on these islands. A whole hell of a lot of those lives are going to be your people’s.” Bolan took the handcuff key out of his pocket and stepped into the danger zone. Melika watched as he uncuffed her and rubbed the bruises on her wrist. “So what do you say? You wanna go steady?”
Melika stared.
Bolan shrugged. “Buy you a cup of coffee while you think about it?”
“I’d prefer a margarita.”
“Well, it’s happy hour somewhere,” Bolan said.
Naval Health Clinic
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Bolan jumped out of the U.S. Coast Guard chopper onto the clinic’s rooftop helipad. A tall blond man in an almost stereotypical tropical-weight blue suit and mirrored shades stood by the roof access door. He stuck out his hand and shouted over the rotor noise. “I’m Agent Rind. You must be Cooper.”
“Glad to meet you.”
Agent Rind looked at Koa. “Who’s your friend?”
“A friend.”
“Right.” Rind stuck out his hand again. “Glad to meet you, friend.”
“Likewise,” Koa said.
Agent Rind ushered them down to the top floor of the clinic.
“You get anything out of our suspect?” Bolan asked.
“Only two 9 millimeters.”
Bolan snorted as they walked past two armed Marines guarding the doorway and entered the intensive care unit. The suspect lay awake in bed and was clearly horrified to see Bolan. “So, Pashke. That’s Albanian, isn’t it?”
What little color Pashke had drained out of his face. He cringed into his pillows as Bolan took a seat on the bed. “You don’t mind if I sit, do you? Good. Listen, how about a last name?”
The Albanian slaver clenched his teeth.
“Oh, c’mon,” Bolan cajoled. “We have your fingerprints. It’s only a matter of time before you turn up in one of our databases.”
Pashke resolutely stared at his vital signs monitor.
“You know who might have something on an Albanian sex slaver, Pashke? Serbian intelligence.”
Pashke’s eyes flew wide in alarm.
“Rind, what’s our boy’s immigration status?”
“He never got his passport stamped in Honolulu. Technically he’s an illegal alien who is a suspect in multiple kidnappings of U.S., Canadian and Mexican citizens.”
“Deport him immediately to Belgrade. I know a guy in BIA who owes me a favor.”
Pashke went from pale to green as Bolan mentioned the Serbian Security Information Agency. The Balkans could be a rough place, and the Serbian BIA currently held the crown of “that which goes bump in the night” in the Balkan Peninsula. Pashke spat out a word. “Xhindi.”
“Pashke Xhindi. Now that’s a fine Albanian name. Rind, would you run that?”
Rind was grinning and texting. “Oh, I’m already on it!”
“So, Pashke, I want you to tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
“From start to finish. Where you came from. Whom you dealt with in Hawaii. Where you were going. Whom you were selling the girls to, and everything you know about them.”
“What if I want lawyer?”
Bolan shrugged. “I guess I might have to let you go.”
Pashke Xhindi blinked. “You let me go?”
Bolan snapped his fingers. “Like that, amigo.”
Xhindi searched for the rub.
Bolan gave it to him.
“You see, it would probably cause Agent Rind and the State Department a great deal of grief to declare you a terrorist and send you to Belgrade. But I can pull some strings, and as soon as the finest medical treatment the U.S. Navy can provide sets you to rights, I can send you home on a one-way ticket to Tirana.”
Bolan drew the Beretta 93-R machine pistol he had taken with him from the CIA safehouse and pushed the selector to three-round burst mode with a click-clack. The Executioner’s cobalt-blue eyes burned into the Albanian’s flinching browns. “But I will be waiting for you, and I will shoot you twenty-one times in the stomach for the flesh-peddling scum you are.” Bolan leaned in until they were nearly nose-to-nose and smelled the Albanian’s fear. “I’ve killed people I liked a lot more for a lot less.”
Xhindi swallowed hard. “And if I am cooperating?”
“Then you get medical treatment and a one-way ticket to Tirana, except I’m not waiting.”
Xhindi managed to relax slightly.
“I am going to run you through every database I know of, and I am going to call my good friend in BIA who owes me his life, and should you ever return to your scumbag ways, you will wake up in a sub-basement in Belgrade from which you will never leave.”
Xhindi shuddered. “I am cooperating.”
“God, I love this guy!” Agent Rind said. “How do I get a job on Team Cooper?”
Bolan regarded the FBI special agent seriously. “You know, I might have a job for you.”
Agent Rind stopped just short of dancing like Snoopy. “Do I get a machine pistol?”
“That can be arranged.”
The Sulu Sea, 40,000 feet
Three EA-18G Growler jets streaked across the Pacific. The two-seat, electronic warfare aircraft, which were versions of the Navy F/A-18 Hornet fighter, cruised at just over the speed of sound. The Pacific was vast, and time and distance were Bolan’s implacable foes in an undercover mission, so the Farm had arranged some supersonic transportation out of Pearl Harbor. Koa and Agent Rind were absolutely delighted to be sitting in a fighter plane for the first time. The pilot spoke over his shoulder. “Striker, we have an ETA of five minutes on the Gipper.”
“Thank yo
u, Lieutenant.” After a rendezvous with the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, they’d deploy into Indonesia. Bolan reexamined the bullet points from the Pashke Xhindi file on his tablet.
It made for interesting reading.
Xhindi had delivered sterile M-16 rifle clones from the Philippines to Indonesia in exchange for women and drugs. He had apparently broadened his reach to Hawaii.
For their target in Indonesia, Pashke Xhindi was only a name and a bank account. Bolan had persuaded the Albanian to text the enemy on his private phone, saying that he’d escaped the massacre and grounding of the Anggun and was looking to come in with some money in hand.
“Beginning approach,” the pilot advised.
Bolan saw the landing lights on the steel island below. The jet fighter seemed to drop like a rock toward the narrow and all too short landing strip on the Nimitz-class supercarrier.
The Growler hit the deck and Bolan slammed against his harness as the jet fighter dropped its arrestor hook and grabbed cable then violently decelerated. “We are down, Striker!”
“Thank you, Lieutenant!”
The EA-18G came to a halt and powered down. The canopy rose and Gipper’s flight-deck crew ran up to perform their post-flight roles. Bolan looked over as the second Growler came to a halt and the canopy lifted. Agent Rind shot his hands into the Pacific sky in victory. “Breaking the sound barrier? Scratch that off the bucket list!” The Gipper’s deck crew seemed amused.
Agent Rind seemed to be the closest thing to a loose cannon the FBI had these days. Bolan was starting to get a good feeling about the mission. He climbed down the ladder and high-fived Agent Rind once he’d clambered down. The deck crew waved at them to get the hell off the flight deck amid the roar of engine noise. The soldier and the FBI agent watched Koa’s EA-18G make its steep approach.
“This is awesome!” Rind enthused.
“You ready to be an Albanian slaver’s bodyguard?”
“Did I mention I double majored in law and film with a minor in theater?”
“No.”
The third fighter came to a halt and Koa shot them the thumbs-up.
Rind returned the gesture. “This is going to be epic.”
Bolan refrained from rolling his eyes. He generally approved of FBI agents, and he liked Rind’s can-do attitude. “It’s going to be something….”
Chapter 7
Manila, Republic of the Philippines
Mack Bolan slid into the rented Land Rover. His shopping mission at the United States’ consulate had been successful. Koa eyed the bulging gear bag. “We cool?”
“Cool as we’re going to get at 2:00 a.m. in Manila.”
The captain of the USS Ronald Reagan had loaned Bolan and his tiny team one of the Gipper’s motor launches. Koa was a proficient seaman and the ride from the Nimitz-class carrier to the main island had been a relatively speedy two-hour run on seas that were becalmed after the storm. The Farm had already made arrangements for weapons, vehicles and gear.
“So what’s the plan?” Agent Rind asked.
Bolan drew a Glock 18 select-fire pistol from his gear bag. “Here’s your machine pistol.”
Agent Rind grabbed the gun giddily. “Awesome!”
“Have you ever fired a machine pistol?”
“Dude, I qualified on Glocks. It’s what I carry.”
“Have you ever fired a machine pistol?” Bolan reiterated.
“No…” Agent Rind admitted.
“Then keep the selector lever on semiauto unless you need to shoot down a helicopter or light up a speeding car.”
“I will.”
Bolan handed out a second one. “Here’s your spare.”
“Sweet!”
Koa, sitting in the driver’s seat of their 4 x 4, was studying the file Kurtzman had put together. He was scowling at the contact name Xhindi had provided. “This De Jong guy is a total jag-off. I don’t like him.”
Bolan agreed. Jagon De Jong was indeed a total jag-off, but he was also the equivalent of Filipino crime royalty. His father had been a two-time Olympic bantamweight boxing champion; a national hero who had gone into politics and gleefully hurled himself into utter corruption. His mother had been a much beloved singer and soap opera star in her youth, and every male member of her family was a pirate or a smuggler. She currently hosted Filipino reality and talent shows. De Jong had grown up a celebrity bad boy who had gotten involved in very bad business. Manila was a significant transshipment point for all sorts of smuggling in the Pacific. De Jong was a connected middleman who had to be given his piece of the action on a respectable swathe of the capital city’s smuggling. By all accounts, unless De Jong was caught with a flamethrower burning down an orphanage, he was untouchable.
Bolan intended to reach out and touch Jagon De Jong tonight…with a clenched fist. “Xhindi said he’s spoken with De Jong twice. We’re going to try to talk our way in.”
Rind, riding shotgun, turned and gave Bolan a grim look. “You think you can?”
“He talked his way into the Maui underworld,” Koa admitted, setting the file aside and starting the engine. “I’ve stopped questioning the man.”
Bolan cleared his throat, got into character and channeled his inner Xhindi as he quoted the Albanian gangster verbatim. “‘What if I want lawyer? And if I am cooperating? I am cooperating.’”
Rind stared at Bolan in awe. “It’s uncanny.”
Koa took the 4 x 4 into the Ermita District, one of Manila’s cultural and entertainment centers. Museums, casinos and theaters all fought for space among the gleaming skyscrapers. Koa pulled up to the curb in front of a shiny new high-rise and a valet dressed in an organ grinder’s monkey suit materialized. “Gentlemen, may I—”
Koa pulled the Hawaiian stone face. “We have business with Señor Jagon.”
Rind looked at the hapless valet as if the man were an insect.
Bolan sat in the back wearing a black duster and smoking French cigarettes as if he owned all of Manila. There had been no time to chemically peel the South Seas patina Hu had given him, so Bolan had been forced to resort to makeup, and it wouldn’t last long. Rind looked like total Euro-trash and Koa just looked dangerous. The valet did an admirable job of shuddering while standing his ground. “Señors, I must—”
Agent Rind glared. “Tell Mr. Jagon that Mr. Xhindi regrets the time of night, but nonetheless wishes to pay his respects.”
Bolan nodded. Rind put his hand under his jacket and waited. The valet weighed what might be hidden there. “One moment, señors, I will—”
Rind held up a respectable wad of Filipino pesos.
The valet took the cash and wrung his hands obsequiously as he backed away and made a phone call. “Señor De Jong will see you.”
Koa slid out and tossed the valet the keys. Rind took position on Bolan’s six. The valet gave the keys to one of his flunkies in a less ornate monkey suit and led Bolan’s team to the private elevator. They stepped within the exotic hardwood-paneled interior and the valet hit the button for the penthouse. It was a respectably long ride to the top but the elevator didn’t pause at any of the intervening seventy-five floors. The door pinged open and Jagon De Jong threw out his arms. De Jong was built like a welterweight and stood in front of them in a red smoking jacket and green-and-gold Thai kickboxing trunks. In one hand he held a bottle of champagne. “Pashke! Baby!”
Bolan regarded the Filipino gangster blandly. “Didn’t I tell you to never call me that?”
De Jong searched his eyebrows for several moments. “No?”
“I’m telling you now.”
De Jong spread his arms again in supplication. “Don’t be that guy.”
Bolan read his unwary and somewhat drunken opponent and knew how to play him. “You are a charming gangster. I’ll give you that.”
De Jong beamed. “Come in! Come in!”
The team entered a penthouse that could only be described as palatial. De Jong had a fetish for gold plating that the most jaded Russian mafia don would admire, and the number of ivory religious carvings occupying nearly every gold-plated surface warranted a U.N. investigation. Many of the walls and ceilings were glass.
De Jong led them to the center of his web of gold and glass. Three individuals draped themselves on a four-sided box of golden couches. One was a slinky-looking Thai woman. The second was a fey Vietnamese young man, and the third was a six-foot, Nordic-looking blonde whose exact gender was in doubt. Her stunning curves and even more stunning face were clearly the product of science. She caressed a pair of black-and-white French bulldogs. All of them wore black satin robes with a JDJ monogram in gold. The young man and woman regarded Bolan with bored looks. The transsexual looked upon Bolan with genuine interest. The Frenchies wagged their stubby tails.
De Jong grinned happily. “You see? If Apollo and Zeus like you, I know you’re good people!” The gangster leered. “And if Belle-Belen likes you? You’re in for the night of your life! Belle! More champagne for our guests. Please, Pashke! Have a seat!”
Belle rose and disappeared behind a glittering glass-brick façade. Bolan and his team sat. “We have a problem.” Bolan’s tone grated.
De Jong pointed at the champagne bottle. “You know? I heard all about it. Heard the ship ran aground, half the crew wiped out, all the girls back at home in their beds.” De Jong leaned back into his golden silk sofa and put a hand to his head as though he had a headache. The young man and woman instantly began massaging his shoulders. “But that is your problem, Señor Xhindi. I fulfilled my part to the letter.”
Belle came out with champagne flutes and two open bottles of Dom Pérignon on a golden tray. Bolan took a glass. “I am out the guns you sold me and out the girls I bought. I have men dead, I am on the run and I’m out every last dollar I invested. I ask you, how did my operation get compromised?”
“I have no idea.”
Bolan put some controlled fury into his voice. “It was an inside job.”
De Jong took his fingers from his brow and snapped them.
Pacific Creed Page 6